


electing strange perfections (in any stranger i choose)

by ohmygodwhy



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, general klaus and his related trauma and lifestyle blanket warning, is anyone still into tua or has the hype faded..........
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21543823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: When Klaus is seventeen, just verging on the peak of eighteen—or actually, probably sixteen verging on seventeen—he meets this guy at this college party he’s not supposed to be at because he’s not in college and not technically allowed to drink yet.He says “You wanna get out of here?” the way they do in the movies, so Klaus does his best to lean up all seductive against the island in the kitchen and says “Sure."(or: klaus, and some of his various...flings?)
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus/Original Character(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 226





	electing strange perfections (in any stranger i choose)

**Author's Note:**

> “claire youve written abt klaus’ shitty love life like three times already” you might be thinking. “what is the point of this.” well the answer is there is no point. i found this in my drafts and decided to put off working on my big ass english essay to finish it bc ive been in my feelings lately and That’s It

When Klaus is seventeen, just verging on the peak of eighteen — or actually, probably sixteen verging on seventeen; the point is it’s after Five fucked off forever and before Ben you know, died — he meets this guy at this college party he’s not supposed to be at because he’s not in college and not technically allowed to drink yet. 

He says “You wanna get out of here?” the way they do in the movies, so Klaus does his best to lean up all seductive against the island in the kitchen and says “Sure.” 

They stumble down the stairs—Klaus, maybe, stumbles a little bit more because he’s like four shots and half a blunt deep—and jump in the guy’s fuckin... 2005 BMW or whatever the hot car of the year was, and drive to his apartment. He helps Klaus up the front steps and lets him lean against him all heavy on the elevator ride up. He fumbles with the keys a little bit and Klaus laughs and the guy kisses him to keep him quiet, and then kisses him again once they get inside, pressing him up against the wall of his bedroom. 

It’s like — okay, in hindsight it’s not great sex, but Klaus is also sixteen and doesn’t have much great sex to compare it to yet, so it’s pretty alright to him. Brian, ‘cause he said his name was Brian sometime on the drive over, takes him apart in his bed and calls him all sorts of things, says he’s pretty and sexy and hot and makes Klaus feel grown up and mature. They take a shower afterwards, and Klaus asks him if he has work or whatever in the morning and if Klaus should go, because that’s general one-night-stand Protocol in Hollywood, but Brian says he doesn’t, and that Klaus is cool to spend the night if he wants. 

So he does, because he can, and because he doesn’t wanna go home right now anyways. 

He ends up staying the whole weekend, ‘cause he has shit all else to do, and when he sneaks back in the house on Monday, he isn’t sure if anyone even noticed he was gone.

(Other than Ben, who catches him in the hall and whispers “where were you?” And Klaus whispers back “it’s a secret,” and leaves it at that. Diego side-eyes him hard at breakfast the next morning, but doesn’t confront him about it.) 

He got Brian’s number, too, and gave Brian his, but when he gets a call next weekend asking if he wants to come over again, it still kind of surprises him. He got the number of a boy he made out with when he was fourteen, but the boy never called him back. What an upgrade! 

So he sneaks out again on Friday night, and he spends the weekend smoking weed and watching shitty horror movies at Brian’s nice apartment. Klaus gives his first successful blowjob (he doesn’t talk about his first two attempts) and Brian talks him through it, and he pets his hair and says sweet things and he lets him sleep in his bed with him again, and Klaus decides he likes it here way better than he likes it at home. 

Because Brian is super nice, and he makes him food and buys him weed and doesn’t even mind when Klaus talks to shit he can’t see — turns out he knows who Klaus is, and knows about the whole I See Dead People thing, which doesn’t put Klaus off as much as it usually would; he likes keeping work and pleasure separate, you know? 

He spends long, lazy weekends four blocks down from his house, and on weekend six, Brian gives him a key. It makes him feel grown up and important, having a copy of his…boyfriend’s?... key. 

Brian works weird hours sometimes, but it’s all good for Klaus, ‘cause he has a key now. So he can escape his shitty house and shitty family whenever he wants and hang at Brian’s instead, even when he isn’t home — as long as he doesn’t eat all the Lays, Brian warns him, and Klaus laughs and says no promises.

So he’s at the apartment one day, right, and then this lady walks in. No knocking, no doorbell; he’s lounging in the living room, lazy on the couch with the nice TV on, and then he hears the lock turn and some lady is walking in.

He looks up at her. She looks over at him. They both blink at each other, for a moment. 

“Um,” Klaus says. 

“Is Brian here?” The woman asks.

“Uh. Not right now.”

“Did he say when he’ll be back?”

“No,” Klaus says, uneasy. “I think he’s at work or something.” 

They’re both quiet for another moment. The classic sitcom laugh recording plays in the background. 

“So, um. Not to be rude, but. Who, like… are you?”

“I’m his fucking wife,” she says.

Klaus feels his mouth drop open. “He’s married?” he asks, which it probably not the best thing to say. 

“You have a key to his apartment and you didn’t know he was fucking married?”

She sounds pissed as all fuck, and it’s kind of whiplashy — all he expected to do today was watch some shitty TV and maybe fuck when Brian’s — apparently married — ass got home. This was at the bottom of his list of Things That Might Happen Today. 

“He doesn’t wear a ring!” he thinks for a moment, “Shit, is that why his work hours are so weird?” 

It turns out that yes, that’s why his work hours are so weird — and it turns out he works at fucking CVS, so there’s no reason his work hours should he so fucking weird in the first place. She calls him a minx and a slut a few times, which he thinks is pretty fucking rude considering he didn’t know he was married! Fuck, does this make him a home-wrecker? 

“Does this make me a home-wrecker?” he asks her, even though he probably shouldn’t. 

She gets this outraged, teary eyed look on her face, and she says yes that makes him a goddamn home-wrecker, and then says a bunch of stuff about how he must have tempted and seduced her husband, even though he was the one who came onto Klaus in the first place — but he knows this is probably a lot to deal with, learning that your husband had a secret, side apartment specifically to take young boys back to and then like, kind of date them, and also that your husband is attracted to boys to begin with, so he lets it slide. 

It all goes even more to shit when the man of the fucking hour gets home. The look on his face, when he walks in and sees his wife and apparently his side piece sitting on the couch, would make Klaus laugh in any other situation. At this point, things have sunk in enough that he’s feeling kind of heartbroken and betrayed and shit, so for once, he’s not in a laughing mood. 

“Patricia,” he says, in this surprised, shaky kind of voice. “I... I can explain.” 

There’s a whole lot of shouting, with Klaus sat on the couch and feeling like a child being left out of the Grown Adult Conversation, like they are when they go to fancy meetings and Reginald does all the talking. He tunes out most of it, discreetly sipping at the bottle of fancy water he took from the fridge, but he does hear Brian saying that Klaus seduced him at the party that he ‘didn’t want to go to but a friend dragged him there’ and clouded his head with lustful thoughts, that he’s a slut, etc, etc.

That part hurts. The idea that Brian only ever thought of him as some slutty side piece twink that he could keep in his apartment and fuck whenever he got bored of his wife. Some crazy, famous junkie who talked to himself and sucked dick like a champ. Jesus.

“I’m just gonna go,” He says about halfway through. He picks up his jacket, searches through the pockets and throws the key back at the cheating asshole. “Dont worry,” he says to Patricia, “He’s all yours. Suck his dick every so often and maybe he won’t cheat on you again.”

He cries about it for a few days, curling up on his bed and blowing pot smoke out of his bedroom window. 

“Diego?” he asks one of the days, sprawling out on his brother’s bed while he throws knives at his wall, trying to practice looking all cool and vigilante-like while he does it.

“What?” Diego answers absently.

“Do you think I’m a slut?”

That makes Diego look back at him. “What the fuck? Who told you that?”

“It’s rhetorical!” Klaus says, because he doesn’t really want anyone knowing about the absolute travesty of a relationship he just went through. 

“That’s not what that word means,” Diego says.

“Yeah it does — it’s when a question isn’t serious.”

“No, it’s not,” Diego says, in that voice he uses when Klaus is being stupid; he uses that voice a lot — Klaus has taken it as a form of endearment at this point.

“Yeah it is! Ben told me.”

“Whatever. Who called you a slut?” And there’s Diego’s selective big brother complex jumping out. It’s endearing sometimes, but sometimes it’s just annoying — he doesn’t baby Allison like this. 

“It doesn’t matter! I was just asking a question.”

“Klaus.”

“It was just — this boyfriend I had, who turned out to be a cheater and had kids and was cheating on his wife with me without me, like, knowing. And then his wife walked in and she called me a slut and then he called me a slut and said I seduced him! It’s not like I knew he was married!” 

“Hold up — you have a boyfriend?”

“No, I used to have a boyfriend. But it turns out he was married, so I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.” 

“How old was he?”

“What? What does that have to do with—“

“How old was he?” Diego repeats.

“Who cares? That not the point!”

Diego sighs, “If he was the one who was juggling two — people? — then doesn’t that make him the slut?” 

Klaus blinks, because that actually kind of makes sense. Diego coming through with the blunt logic. He has to laugh.

“Hey, yeah,” Klaus agrees. “Yeah, I guess it does.” 

Diego looks quietly pleased with himself, which almost makes Klaus laugh again. Diego finally gives up on throwing practice, sits back on his bed and seems to search Klaus’ face for a second, “You’re not a slut, Klaus. You shouldn’t let people say shit like that to you.” 

Klaus shrugs, and has to look away. “It doesn’t matter. I left right after, obviously.”

“How old was he, man?” He asks again.

Klaus feels embarrassed, suddenly, at how stupid he was, thinking that someone was actually interested enough in him to give him a key to their apartment and treat him all special and shit. Taking it all at face value instead of actually thinking — nothing like Diego, or Ben, or Allison, who would make sure the guy wasn’t shady before getting in too deep. Klaus has always been kind of slow. 

“I dunno,” he admits, “I met him at this um, this college party, so I thought he was like, early twenties.”

“But he was married.”

“But he was married,” he agrees. To his mounting horror, he feels his eyes start to prick; he doesn’t like crying in front of Diego, because Diego’s all about being manly and competing with Luther and shit, and Diego hates crying himself. “I didn’t know. I just thought... he was nice to me, y’know?”

“Klaus,” Diego sighs, and Klaus quickly pushes himself up and off of his brother’s bed. He wipes hard at his eyes.

“It’s whatever,” he says, not wanting to look at Diego’s probably disappointed face; he hates people looking disappointed with him, but he unfortunately seems to inspire that emotion in people more than any other one, except for maybe annoyance — or like, lust if he’s in the right crowd. “I’m not with him anymore, obviously, so it doesn’t matter. I was just wondering.”

“Klaus,” Diego says again, “Don’t get involved with people like that. And don’t go to any more college parties, god.”

Klaus laughs, brushing off the heavy shit he was just feeling, “You should come next time, you’ll see why they’re so fun.”

“No thanks,” Diego scoffs, letting it go, too, “Unlike some people, I don’t love getting robbed.” 

“That was one time!” Klaus says, and Diego laughs, and Klaus lets Brian and all his bullshit leave his head. He hopes he can patch things up with Patricia, if only for their kids’ sake, but other than that—who gives a shit, right?

Klaus comes out of a week long bender and finds that he’s somewhere in the… somewhere. That he’s never been before. 

“Where are we?” He asks Ben. Ben, ever annoyed and unbelievably patient with him, sighs. 

“Ohio?” He says, and the way it sounds like a question kind of makes Klaus uneasy.

“Ohio,” he repeats, “That’s like. What, the south?”

Ben just shrugs. 

“Huh,” Klaus says, and then he gets up and tries to find the nearest bar. Or the nearest Walmart. Whichever comes first.

What comes first is a Walmart. 

“Do they use the same money, here?” Klaus whispers.

“We’re not in a different country,” Ben says. 

“It kinda feels like a different country,” Klaus argues, “That cashier’s wearing a cowboy hat.”

He digs out enough change to buy a nice, cold iced tea — he craves those canned motherfuckers like crazy after one of his longer highs. He wonders where the guy who gave him the absolute best coke in the world went, and hopes he didn’t go far. And he hopes he has a car.

Once he’s done with his tea, he walks outside, sees this old dude with half his entrails hanging out, and decides to go find that bar he was thinking about. He’s kind of afraid an Ohio bar will be kinda like the wild wild west, like he’ll walk in and every patron will look over at him from under their cowboy hats and he’ll immediately collapse from the weight of all their stares.

It’s not like that, he’s grateful to find. He’s also very grateful to find that Ohio has cute guys all the way out here, too. The kind of cute guy that catches his eye and looks him up and down instead of side eyeing him. 

Isn’t the south homophobic? Are they in the south? He doesn’t really know, and he doesn’t really care, not when the cute Ohio boy is sauntering up to him and asks “can I buy you a drink?” in a cute little accent that has Klaus reeling.

“Sure,” He says. 

“What’s your name?” Ohio boy asks.

“Klaus,” Klaus says, and Ohio boy says that’s a nice name, and that his name is Joey, and he’s very pleased to make his acquaintance. 

Fuck the guy who gave him that mind blowing crack, Klaus thinks. He thinks he can stay right here for a while. 

And he does! Joey is a real gentleman, and takes him out to dinner before he takes him back to his apartment for the night. He doesn’t try nothing, either, looks at him and touches him but doesn’t touch too low. And Klaus is like, in the best position for advantage-taking, he knows — just out of it enough for Joey to make him do what he wants, but just coherent enough to make it interesting.

Joey isn’t like that, though. Which is weird? Klaus says so, and Joey laughs this deep laugh and says I’ll blow your mind, just wait. 

He does! Like, way better than Brian at sixteen. They go out to dinner a few times, go to the bar a few times, and Joey tells him about fishing or something, Klaus isn’t quite sure, but he makes whatever it is sound interesting as all fuck. 

One morning, Joey says that he wants to show him something. Which is intriguing — Klaus says so, and Joey laughs, and they drive out further into the countryside than they already are. Joey tells him to wait right there, so Klaus waits right there, until he sees what Joey wants to show him.

“Oh my god, he has a tractor. He has a tractor!” He says, turning to Ben, “He’s gonna take me for a romantic ride on his tractor!”

“Jesus Christ,” Ben says. “This is...”

“This is some yee-haw shit,” he mimes twirling a lasso in the air, “But like, the cute side. I didn’t know tractors were real things until today. This is gonna be so great.” 

Ben does not look half as convinced as he should, but Klaus think that it is pretty great, actually. Joey is very cute about clearing the seat for Klaus, making sure he’s safely inside with an arm hooked through his elbow, his other wrist draped over the steering wheel like he’s driving a Mercedes instead of a fucking tractor in the middle of Ohio. Klaus didn’t even believe Ohio was like, real until he woke up here. 

Afterwards, they walk back to the edge of the field where they parked, and make out on the hood of his truck. It’s very old-school romantic, makes Klaus feel like he’s in a nineties teen romance flick — Joey’s the heartthrob and Klaus is the girl next door, enchanted by his pretty eyes and nice arms. The thought makes him huff a laugh against Joey’s lips, and Joey pulls back to look at him, crinkling his eyebrows all cute. 

“What’re you laughin’ about?”

Klaus grins, lazy and content. “Just thinkin’ about how romantic this is. You’re a real country boy, a whole gentleman.” 

“Sweetheart,” He says, southern drawl crawling up Klaus’ spine, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He slides off the hood of the car to settle in between Klaus’ legs, and yeah, okay, he thinks, head knocking back against the metal, maybe gentleman wasn’t the right word. 

So they fuck on the hood of Joey’s truck, which Klaus’ back does not thank him for the next morning, and then they drive to the fucking farm his parents own and Klaus finds out that they’re deeply, deeply homophobic. Like, to the point where they do absolutely nothing to disguise their contempt. 

Klaus doesn’t know what Joey was hoping for, bringing him here, but Klaus hangs back on the porch, biting into an apple he swiped from the kitchen after Joey’s dad said something about Klaus stealing their silverware or some shit, and tries not to listen to the whispered argument going on inside. 

Ben hovers beside him, hands on his pockets.

“So,” Ben says, “We’re getting to the not-so-cute part of the yee-haw shit, huh.”

Klaus sighs deep against the apple. It’s ripe, bright red and pretty sweet. He wonders if it’s homegrown like, organically and shit. Can you grow apples non-organically? He’ll have to ask Joey. 

“Yeah,” Klaus says, as quiet as he can manage, “But can you imagine what would happen if I wasn’t white? They might not’ve let me on their property.”

It’s not that funny, mostly because it’s true, but Ben graciously decides to be kind to him for once, and huffs a single laugh. “Lucky they can’t see me, then.”

Klaus opens his mouth to respond, but then the front door swings open. It’s Joey, looking nervous and sad and kind of guilty. Klaus’ heart sinks immediately; he knows what’s gonna happen next.

“Listen,” Joey says, voice pitched low enough that Klaus has to lean in to actually, like, listen, “I’m sorry, but you’ve gotta leave. My mama, she’s not — and my dad, he doesn’t... I’m sorry, this was just a bad idea.”

“Bringing me?” Klaus asks, already wishing he hadn’t, “Or like, doing this at all?”

Joey doesn’t answer, but his eyebrows do that slightly different crinkly thing that means he feels bad. Klaus didn’t even realize he knew the difference.

“‘M real sorry, Klaus. I can give you a ride back into town.”

Klaus presses his lips together so he doesn’t say anything stupid or hurt or anything dumb like that. He doesn’t know why he didn’t see this coming to begin with. 

“No,” he says, “No, it’s alright, I got it. You should spend some time with your family. I can... get a hotel or something, and wait?”

He looks like he feels even worse, and also like he doesn’t know what to say. Oh, Klaus thinks.

“Oh,” Klaus says, “So we’re just — done? All of it?”

Joey swallows, and shrugs, and doesn’t have any of the big country bravado he had back in the bar, or even in his stupid tractor. 

They’re both silent for a moment. “Okay,” Klaus says finally. “I liked your tractor.”

Joey cracks a small smile. “She liked you, too.”

Which, okay, that’s kind of weird. Maybe this is for the best, Klaus thinks, trying to be positive and, you know, look on the bright side. It’s one thing to gender your vehicles, but to assign them emotions? Maybe that’s a little too much yee haw shit for him. 

He walks back to town, wanders into a diner and then an antique shop, where he finds a future wedding present for Allison, though he doesn’t know it’ll be for a future wedding just yet. It’s this little doll thing that they both wanted when they were little, saw it in magazines and billboards, but never got. He’s pretty sure they stopped making them after a few years.

“Fuckin score!” Klaus says, and Ben says, “Finally, something worthwhile.” 

Ten months later, give or take, and he’s at Allison’s wedding in a too-big suit that doesn’t actually belong to him, giving her the doll thing beforehand instead of letting it stand out against all her other rich, fancy friends’ gifts.

“Where’d you even find this?” She asks, surprised and maybe just a little bit pleased, too — hopefully, Jesus.

“At this little antique shop in Ohio — I know,” he says at her confused look, “I didn’t think it was real, either. But I dated a cowboy! For like two weeks, and then I found out his family hated gays and all that, but it was fun — I’ll tell you about it later,” he laughs, gesturing the topic away with a swipe of his hand.

He doesn’t really know if he’ll even have the time to tell her about it later, but they can both pretend.

“Au ‘voir for now,” he says, pulling her into another loose hug. “You look so good.”

“She looks so good!” He says to Ben, once they turn away. Ben looks kind of sad, glancing longingly back at their sister, and he nods. 

“I’m glad something good came out of your awful taste in men.” 

While he may sometimes have questionable taste in men, Klaus thinks he has a pretty solid taste in women. Rosa is cute, obviously, but in that way that makes you want to melt to the ground and like, worship her or some shit. She speaks her mind, and doesn’t hold back when she doesn’t need to. She also smokes a lot of pot, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive. 

So basically, what he’s saying is he likes that big strap energy. Rosa definitely has some of that. 

He meets her at a support group that Ben talked him into going to — they catch each other’s eyes at opposite ends of the circle, and she rolls hers at whatever preachy bullshit the super Christian group leader is spouting, and he hides a laugh in the back of his hand. 

She catches him afterwards, having a smoke out front, and straight up just says: “You like to get pegged?”

If Klaus wasn’t such a pro, he might’ve choked on his cigarette. Instead of doing that, he exhales, and answers: “Oh, absolutely.”

She smiles at him, he smiles back, and it’s all history from there. 

They stop by a liquor store — because they’re in rehab at the moment so they have to trade the drugs out for something else fun — and go back to her cozy and somehow simultaneously rugged little apartment, and she gives him the pegging Of A Lifetime. Like we’re talking... seeing stars, life changing, she knew what she was doing and she good at it kind of pegging. There had been a moment, right when it had all, y’know, slid home, where he had blinked up at the ceiling and thought: is this what a religious experience feels like? 

“Don’t know about that,” she had laughed, all smug and sexy and shit, and he’d realized vaguely that he said that last bit out loud, “But it’s pretty damn close, huh.” 

“Yeah,” he had agreed, and that was about all the rest of the talking he got in.

After they both got off, she had leaned back against the wall and lit up a cigarette. The moonlight was pouring in through the window, and Klaus suddenly and very strikingly felt like the love interest in a James Bond movie right after a night of passionate love making in the middle of a mission. 

It lasts about two weeks, their fun, post-support group love making, until Rosa stops showing up to the support group — and really, Rosa was the only thing making it bearable, so Klaus stops showing up, too.

He never really finds out what happened to Rosa, but he hopes she’s doing okay. 

He doesn’t think that Daniel The Coke Dealer counts as a fling of any kind, because Klaus only sucked him off once, that one time when he didn’t have any money and was infinitely more dope-sick than he would really like to be, and he barely even complimented him afterwards. Only gave him like half of their usual deal, and said that he might throw more in if Klaus did better next time, which. First of all, Klaus knew plenty of other dealers that were way more reliable than old DCD, and probably cheaper, too. Second of all, he also knew he did a great job, thanks. 

But he hadn’t wanted to press his luck, so he’d laughed and shrugged and said you haven’t seen shit yet, Danny, and never hit the asshole up again.

It was quality coke, though, and it was a good high. So. At least something good came out of it. 

He meets the Osso Buco guy on a beach. It’s not a Cali beach, he remembers; he’s pretty sure it must’ve been Oregon, back when he and Ben had a brief fifty state hopping plan that went down the drain — in Oregon, actually! Because that’s when he met the Osso Buco guy, at the weird hippy vibed beach party he heard about from a guy he definitely hadn’t bought pot from after Ben definitely didn’t tell him he shouldn’t. He was still as squeaky clean as a fucking whistle, or however the saying went — everyone knew weed didn’t count. 

But anyways, he meets the guy at the beach. He isn’t dressed as 1970s hippy as the rest of them are, which is probably what catches Klaus’ eye. He’s pretty tan, pretty tall, and has pretty eyes that look Klaus up and down and make him feel all nice even though he knows he might look kind of homeless at the moment. He grabbed a shower at the girl’s house he slept at last night — who he also accidentally took a jean jacket from after she let him borrow it — but he isn’t used to Oregon, doesn’t live here and doesn’t have very much with him. The guy still looks at him like he’s something good to look at, to snatch up and eat and shit. 

Klaus smiles at him. The guy smiles back. 

They hit it off beautifully. The Osso Buco Guy--as he has been forever dubbed in Klaus’ mind, ‘cause Ben said he’s not worth the effort to remember, thank you very much--is very good looking, very charismatic, and seems to think Klaus is the funniest and most interesting person in the world--or at least, that’s what it feels like. It’s exhilarating, to have that kind of attention on him, on him alone. It makes him feel more comfortable, here, in this place he doesn’t know very well.

Because he doesn’t know this place, isn’t used to it or to the people who bum around like he is back near the academy. He’s tired of feeling like he might get jumped if he stops in the wrong place for too long, and tired of trying to find somewhere to sleep in this unfamiliar place. Shit, why’d he let Ben talk him into this again?

(“Oregon and California were your idea,” Ben reminds him not so gently when he brings it up, “I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon.”

“You wanted to see the beach, too, asshole. And here we are! At the beach!”)

So when the OB guy asks him if he needs a place to crash the Morning After, looking him up and down again like he did on the beach last night, Klaus leans back on the bed and uncrosses his legs and says, “Only if you’re offering.” 

“You gonna pay rent?” He teases — Klaus is pretty sure it’s teasing.

Klaus shrugs, smile lazy and pot hazy, “Got no money, mister landlord.”

The man smiles back, “I’m sure we can come to some… arrangement. There are other ways you can pay.”

Klaus thinks that’s pretty hot, as a sex thing — one time a dude he was with pretended to be a teacher who was giving Klaus a bad grade, and he’d gotten off pretty good even if it was kinda fucked up — but somewhere in the back of his head, he wonders how serious OB is about that. The fact is, Klaus really doesn’t have any shit to offer other than his great blowjobs and sparkling personality. Hopefully, he thinks, tilting his head back to catch OB’s lips in a kiss when he bends down, hopefully that’ll be enough.

It is, for a while. 

The sex is pretty good — definitely better than his Brain The Cheater experience at sixteen. It’s pretty good, even if he does some shit Klaus isn’t, like, super into sometimes. It doesn’t matter, ‘cause people have done worse, and he’s getting a roof and a couch and some pretty bomb home cooked meals out of it. They get baked a few times, and the good Oregon weed makes him pliant and hazy and more receptive to it all, even the stuff he doesn’t really like — it feels way better when he’s fucked up, it always does. 

One day, OB is in some kinda mood, and he bends Klaus over the kitchen counter and, y’know, goes to town. It would be pretty hot, if Klaus was fucked up enough to not feel the edge of the counter digging into his hip bones and the shit the dick is like, saying. Klaus likes dirty talk, don’t get him wrong, but. Sometimes the shit he says hits a little too hard. 

“Hey,” OB says afterwards, panting into Klaus’ shoulder, “I think I’m moving.”

“Huh?” Klaus pants back.

“At the end of the week. I’m moving. Friend of mine is going to Cali for the year, I’m going with.”

“Oh,” Klaus says, digesting as best he can, post-sex.

“You could come with, if you want,” it doesn’t sound sincere, and both of them know it. Klaus has outlived his usefulness, his…allure? Whatever made him interesting and valuable to this man has faded out.

It usually does, in the end, but it still vaguely hurts every time. 

“Nah,” Klaus says. “I don’t really like Cali. Too crowded.”

Living and dead, he doesn’t say. Lotsa people die at the beach. And LA. 

“I feel that,” the asshole says, sounding insultingly relieved. Did he really get bored of Klaus that easily? Were his blowjobs not good enough? Did he get too high to be enjoyable? He knows some guys like when he puts up a little bit of a fight, makes it more interesting. Maybe he shoulda done some of that.

It’s whatever, though. It doesn’t really matter, at the end of the day, because OB gives him some weed for the road and a generous twenty five dollars, because he ‘gave really good blow jobs’, which means that at least it wasn’t his blowjobs that didn’t make the cut. 

Klaus still barely knows this place, and Ben has been looking at him with that silent sort of pity on his face, silent sort of sadness, so he decides to head back to familiar territory. 

So much for Oregon, he thinks, sighing deeply.

“At least the beach was nice,” he offers to Ben and to himself.

“Yeah,” Ben says eventually, quiet and almost sounding like he did back when he was alive, “The beach was nice.” 

Dave is nothing like all his previous, what would you call them, flings? Dave makes him feel all special, like Brian did, but also nothing like Brian ever did. He makes him feel, like. Loved? He makes him feel like he’s finally, finally worth something to someone. Klaus can actually see a future with him. Wants to have a future with him, wants to have a future--cares about it. Klaus has never much cared about the future before, because there was never anything much to look forward to. With Dave, there is. 

Dave says he won’t ever get tired of him — how could I? he asks, all gentle and sweet, you’re one of a kind, baby — and he won’t ever throw him away. 

Dave doesn’t throw him away. He would never, Klaus knows, peering down into his hazy eyes. But he does leave him behind. He thinks that might be worse.

**Author's Note:**

> first semester is kicking my Ass. two weeks and then finals week I have so much to do and yet im doing none of it. drop a comment and pray for me y'all. also I know nothing abt ohio and I intend to keep it that way


End file.
